The present invention relates to anchoring devices for maintaining stach containers in stable relation and more particularly to an improved anchor plate having a plurality of corrugated patterns with teeth extending from the raised portion of the corrugated pattern to improve the penetration of the teeth into the container material, without fully penetrating the container.
In the past, there have been various anchor members for unitizing a plurality of containers. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,254, there is disclosed an anchor member for unitizing containers by having a single wall portion extending from the anchor member transversely of one face which is adopted to be positioned in the space between laterally adjacent containers, and also includes pins or teeth extending from both faces of the body for gripping or engaging the walls of the adjacent or superimposed containers. The anchor member includes a flat body from which the teeth extend. U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,676, discloses an anchoring device having a pair of plate portions formed of sheet metal having a plurality of interval clawa extending from each major surface and interconnecting portion of reduced width with respect to the plate portion for normally maintaining the plate portion in a generally common plane and being bendable without separation. Again a flat plate is used. However, the use of a flat plate presents a problem in that depending on the flexibility of the containers being interconnected, sometimes all of the holding teeth do not penetrate the container material.
The present invention overcomes the aforesaid problems by providing a plurality of corrugated patterns in the plate with the teeth extending from the raised sides of corrugated patterns making penetration of the teeth into the container material more likely even though the container material may be somewhat flexible.